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Philippe de Champaigne Portrait of Bishop of Jean-Pierre Camus

The serene and serious-looking clergyman in this beautiful and austere portrait made in 1643 is Jean-Pierre Camus (1584-1652), 58 years old at the time, a French bishop and author of numerous devotional stories. He is wearing a grey hooded cloak. The crucifix is the only reference to his episcopate. It could easily be mistaken for a portrait made by a 15th-century Flemish 'realist', but the portraitist was the Brussels-born and Paris-based Philippe de Champaigne, a pupil of Rubens. The MSK collection also has The Supper at Emmaus, a work of his nephew and pupil Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne.